


Dissect

by Spookery



Series: Ain't No Place For No Hero [2]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:19:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2468081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spookery/pseuds/Spookery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dis·sect (verb) \dī-ˈsekt also di-, ˈdī-ˌ\ : to cut (a plant or dead animal) into separate parts in order to study it. // More backstory bits of the vault hunters. (Part of an AU with writer kizzack)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dissect

“Vik Hallothel...” The name sounded wrong coming from his mouth.

She’d been drugged for a few days, she figured, but now she was stone cold sober.

“Weird name.” Jack snorted and tossed the folder he’d been holding onto a chair nearby, then bent down and put his hands on his knees. As if she was a child. “Window too high for ya, pumpkin? Can’t see?”

Her hands were shaking behind her back.

“Aww, well, don’t wanna miss the _fun,_  now!” he continued, as if trying to coax her into something innocent, then grabbed the heavy collar around her neck and jerked her to another chair. “Go on; Mom’s probably wondering where you are, huh?”

She grit her teeth hard, until it began to hurt her head.

“Get up,” Jack ordered, and his voice was low and dangerous.

So she did. Unsteadily, she set one foot on the seat of the chair and tried to climb up, doing her best to ignore the bile rising in her throat. He crossed his arms and watched without offering to help.

“There we go.” A grin spread across his face, slow as honey. And her throat closed. She ducked her head, gritting her teeth again, and swallowed hard.

Vik Hallothel lay flayed on a steel table below, with men in biohazard suits circling her corpse like vultures. Her mouth was still partially open, and a pool of purple-black leaked out slowly at the corners of her lips. Everything that wasn’t supposed to be seen, all the insides of her, the organs and the bones and the veins and the mess, was a loose, shining-wet pile in her open stomach. They’d already broken open her rib cage. And they didn’t bother to close her eyes.

“Ugly, right? Thought you alien-types would look a little more interesting on the inside,” Jack muttered, seeming disappointed. “Maybe you’ll be better.” He patted her shoulder roughly before turning to yell to a soldier at the end of the hall. “Hey, take this one in. We’re done here.”

“Yes, sir.” The man trotted toward them, cocking the obnoxiously yellow gun in his hands as he neared them.

“And, uh, by the way? See if you can find anything that’s actually _useful_  to me before you just decide to kill _it_ on a whim, too. Thanks, cupcake.” He offered a sneering smile, then left without any further comment. No shitty remarks to her. No more jokes. Just a flash of his grave face and then the back of his coat.

She glanced back at the view through the window, taking in what she assumed would be the last she ever saw of her mother’s face, and flinched when the soldier jammed the muzzle of his gun into her back.

“Come on.”

She got down from the chair less than gracefully. He gripped her upper arm and began to lead her toward a steel door at the end of the hall--where he’d been standing moments before. A voice crackled out of his ECHO suddenly, and it was one she vaguely remembered.

_“I have orders to start extracting bone marrow from the alive one as soon as possible. Bring it here when Jack’s finished. There’s a lot to be done.”_

“I’m bringing it to you now.”

 

  
God, she didn’t want to die like this.


End file.
